Janos Hunyadi

Janos Hunyadi (1400-11 August 1456), also called John Hunyadi, was the regent of Hungary and was claimed as a national hero by the Romanians as well as Hungarians.

Biography
The son of a minor nobleman, Janos Hunyadi rose on merit in the service of the kingdom of Hungary. Fighting Ottoman sultan Murad II, he proved a flexible and imaginative general, inflicting defeats on the Turks at Smederevo in 1441 and the Iron Gates in 1442.

On the back of these victories he won papal support for a crusade to drive the Ottomans out of Europe. The only ruler to back Hunyadi was Wladyslaw III, king of Poland and Hungary. The Long Campaign, as it is known, was at first very successful, but divisions in the Christian ranks left Hunyadi with inadequate forces to face Murad at Varna on the Black Sea in November 1444. The crusaders were defeated and Wladyslaw killed. Hunyadi became regent of Hungary and continued to resist the Ottomans for the rest of his life, dying of disease after the valiant defense of Belgrade against a Turkish siege in 1456.